The Serpent and the Mirror
by Paimpont
Summary: Dr. Dumbledore suspects that Harry's hallucinations about Hogwarts and the Dark Lord hold the clues to a terrible family secret. What are the Potters hiding? And what is Harry's relationship to the shadowy Voldemort? Now COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

_From the Case Files of Dr. Dumbledore._

The Case of Harry P., Week 1:

A new patient today, a seventeen year old boy suffering from vivid hallucinations and paranoia, with gradual onset of symptoms since the age of eleven. His parents, Lily and James P., have been seriously concerned about Harry's mental health for some time, and they have consulted a series of specialists before being referred to me.

Harry P. is a perfectly ordinary looking boy, except for his striking green eyes and an unusual jagged scar on his forehead. My first impression was that he is rather sweet, but terribly troubled. I do not have the immediate sense that he is a threat to anyone but himself. He is a ferociously intelligent child, who was doing very well in school as long as he was able to attend. For the last few years, however, his parents have kept him home, due to his deepening illness, where he immerses himself in his beloved books. Harry is extremely well read, fluent in several ancient languages, and endowed with a particularly rich imagination.

Harry seems unable to separate his hallucinations from reality, but his hallucinations are extraordinary lucid and internally coherent. He has created a fantasy world, which to him appears quite real, about his imagined life as a wizard at a school he calls "Hogwarts". In my experience, this kind of mental escape into a fantasy world is usually caused by a deeply traumatic event, which has so affected the patient that he is unwilling and unable to deal with the reality in which that event took place. The parents were unable to identify a particular traumatic event that could have triggered Harry's flight into madness. I will have to dig deeper; there is some dark secret in Harry's past somewhere.

I always insist that the family accompany the patient during the first consultation, so I can get a better sense of the patient's background. Lily and James P. arrived with Harry and his charming six year old brother Dudley. His mother Lily is a strikingly beautiful woman, with long red hair and the same intense green eyes as Harry. She seemed quite distraught, and pleaded with me to find a way to heal her son. The boy's father, James, was more composed, but also deeply concerned about Harry. James P. looks a great deal like Harry, except for the eye color. The little brother, Dudley, is, quite frankly, one of the most beautiful children I have ever seen. He is dark-haired like his father and brother, but with curly hair like his mother. He was a little shy when first meeting me, and insisted on sitting on his mother's lap, but after a while, he warmed up to me and came over to check if my beard is real (apparently, he had had an unfortunate experience with a Santa Claus whose beard turned out to be something of a disappointment). When he discovered that my beard was real, he was most pleased.

I could not help but notice during this pleasant interchange that Harry appeared desperately jealous of his little brother. This is of course not uncommon in a child who has had his loving parents to himself for years before a younger sibling comes along. Harry's jealousy toward his brother is woven into his hallucinations in the most intriguing manner.

Harry believes that his parents are dead, killed by an evil wizard he refers to as "Voldemort". In his mind, he is now living with an abusive family called the "Dursleys", who keep him imprisoned in a closet.

His delusions about life with the imaginary Dursleys are quite intriguing. Although he believes, on some level, that Lily and James are dead, the Dursleys are clearly representations of his parents, distorted through his intense jealousy of little Dudley. He is angry with his parents for doting on the winsome little Dudley, and he is distorting his sweet mother Lily into the abusive Petunia (I noted, of course, that he chooses to keep the flower name to signal her real identity, but substitutes a plainer flower), and his caring father James becomes the intimidating Vernon. Characteristically, the fantasy versions of his parents neglect and abuse him, while doting on their monstrous "real" son Dudley.

I will record his hallucinations about his life at Hogwarts in some detail, since it seems to me that this is where the key to Harry's illness lies. There is usually nothing random or arbitrary about a person's hallucinations; just like dreams, hallucinations are made up of elements of a person's experiences, emotions, fears, and dreams. Harry's dream world is a mirror of the real world, and somewhere in his fantastic visions lies a clue to the terrible secret that Harry has tried to forget. But hallucinations, like dreams, are composed in a language of strange symbols and hidden meanings.

_A dark wizard named Voldemort kills Harry's parents, James and Lily, and attempts to kill the infant Harry as well. For some reason, Harry survives the killing curse, but is left orphaned in care of the Dursleys. After suffering years of abuse at the Dursleys, Harry discovers that he is a wizard. A friendly giant by the name of Hagrid hands him an invitation to attend Hogwarts, a school for magic. At Hogwarts, he makes friends with the loyal Ron and the brilliant Hermione, Ron's twin brothers Fred and George, and several other children. He attends classes, including Potions with the unpleasant Professor Snape, and Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall, finds himself at odds with the arrogant student Draco Malfoy, and excels in a magical sport called Quidditch, played on flying broomsticks. Harry plays the position of "Seeker", whose responsibility it is to catch a golden ball he calls the "Snitch". Harry, Ron, and Hermione discover that the legendary alchemical Philosopher's Stone, believed to grant eternal life, is hidden at Hogwarts, and they suspect Snape of attempting to steal it. After passing a series of challenges, including finding the one true key among many false ones, getting past a three-headed dog, and crossing a chessboard with living and homicidal pieces, Harry enters an underground room where he discovers that Snape was not the one trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone, but rather another teacher, the shy professor Quirinus Quirrell. In a most disturbing scene Harry describes most vividly, Quirrell reveals that he he two faces, one of them belonging to Voldemort, who is seeking eternal life through the stone. Quirrell attempts to kill Harry, but fails to do so, because Harry is protected by his mother's love for him._

Much to my amusement, I found myself inserted into Harry's delusions as a benign headmaster. I believe this is a good sign; he is letting me into his world.

One of the first things to note is that in his delusions about life at "Hogwarts", Harry himself seems to be split into two characters: The male Harry and the female Hermione. Harry is profoundly intelligent, but in his hallucinations, he seems to have separated himself from his intellectual side; he perceives this aspect of his personality as separate and also, interestingly, as female. The Ron character is loosely based, his parents confirmed, on Harry's best friend Shawn.

The game of Quidditch, in which Harry imagines himself as Seeker is most interesting. He is seeking for something, but what? A secret, an answer...Perhaps the elusive snitch represents the very key to unlock the strange secrets of Harry's mind. Quidditch… What lies behind this curious name? The word is reminiscent of the _Quiddity_ of the medieval philosophers, the essence or _reality_ of things as they are. Perhaps some still lucid part of Harry's mind is seeking the truth, the truth about that dreadful event that his subconscious represents as the dark figure of Voldemort.

Something happened to Harry, something that scarred him. His scar (which his parents tell me was caused by a fall when he was a baby), figures prominently in the story in a symbolic way: It marks him, sets him apart. It symbolizes past suffering, as well as a connection to the fearful figure of Lord Voldemort. But what does Voldemort represent? Something that terrifies Harry, but what?

Voldemort is, intriguingly, represented by the two-faced Quirrell, so aptly named after Quirinus, a form of the two-faced Roman god Janus. Why does he have two faces? Because, I suspect, Harry's subconscious is trying to tell me that something is not quite what it seems to be. Or someone...

But one thing puzzles me. I can make sense, in a way, of most parts of his story; the characters and events are symbolic of Harry's own tormented inner state. Hagrid is a benign helper figure, as is McGonagall (named, one assumes, after my charming secretary at the front desk), Draco ("the dragon") represents adversity, the benevolent tricksters Fred and George symbolize an intelligent mind's revolt against conventionality. But I must confess that the character of Snape makes no sense to me. He is neither good nor evil, or perhaps _both_ good and evil. Harry believes that Snape wants to kill him, and yet, as it turns out, Snape was saving his life. Who, or what, does Snape represent? Perhaps this enigmatic figure holds the key to the dark secret that Harry's subconscious is so desperately trying to hide behind the illusory walls of Hogwarts.


	2. Chapter 2

_From the Files of Dr. Dumbledore: The Case of HP: Week 2._

The reality created by Harry's psyche is getting progressively darker. Hogwarts itself, the imaginary refuge for Harry's troubled mind, possesses, he tells me, a "chamber of secrets".

Harry seems to find it quite easy to open up to me, as long as we talk exclusively about the world of Hogwarts. I can ask questions, and he will answer lucidly, as long as I play along and enter his imaginary land. But if I ask a single question about what lies outside the realm of his imagination, he will remain silent.

This week, his mind was occupied with thoughts of the dreaded "hidden room" he refers to as "the chamber of secrets".

_Harry hears a voice in his head, whispering of murder. Why can no one else hear the voice? After a macabre Death Day Party, Harry, Ron and Hermione stumble upon the caretaker's cat, petrified. There is writing on the wall: The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. There is a monster loose in the castle. Who is the mysterious Heir of Slytherin who has unleashed the monster? Draco Malfoy, or Harry himself? Harry learns that he possesses the ability to talk to snakes. Does that make him a dark wizard? More students are petrified by the monster. Harry finds a diary, written by a boy from the past, Tom Riddle. Hermione is petrified as well, but she leaves behind a clue: The monster from the Chamber of Secrets is a basilisk, which petrifies anyone who looks at it. But Hermione is holding a mirror in her frozen hand: Even if one cannot look at the monster directly and live, one can see it in a mirror. Then Ginny, Ron's red haired-sister, is taken into the chamber. Harry descends into the chamber and finds Ginny, unconscious, next to Tom Riddle. Tom Riddle, the boy from the past, has possessed Ginny. He made her open the Chamber of Secrets and set the monster free. He plans to kill her, and Harry as well. He is Voldemort… He orders the monstrous Basilisk to kill Harry, but Harry kills it, with the help of a sword brought to him by Dumbledore's phoenix. He drives a serpent fang through Tom Riddle's diary, and the shadowy Riddle disappears. _

Ah, the monster from the Chamber of Secrets! Now we are getting, I think, to the heart of the matter, to that dread secret at the center of Harry's hallucinations.

The serpent, the basilisk, the ancient symbol of evil and fear! But what terror is it that lurks within the hidden chamber of Harry's mind? What memory can be so terrifying that it petrifies, quite literally, those that encounter it?

The monster even petrifies Hermione, who represents, I believe, Harry's own intellect. But even incapacitated by the terror from the depth, the intellect finds a solution: _The mirror._ When you cannot look at the serpent directly, look at it in the mirror.

I believe this is highly significant. Perhaps that is precisely what Harry's fantastic hallucinations are doing: They are creating a mirror that allows him to look at the monster indirectly. Through the mirror of his delusions, he is able to approach that dark secret his mind is hiding without being petrified by it.

The monster threatens to kill the red-haired Ginny. Who is she? The younger version of the flame-haired Lily? It is only natural, perhaps, for the boy to feel some Oedipal attachment to his beautiful mother, and I sensed certain romantic undertones in his tale of the daring rescue of Ginny. But Ginny is not just an innocent victim; _she_ is the one who set the monster loose, after all. What is the significance of this?

And what of Harry's own guilt? He fights the basilisk, he conquers Voldemort yet again, but discovers in the process that _he is very much like the Dark Lord._ Tom Riddle – what is the riddle behind this curious figure? Voldemort was once a boy like Harry. _Is Harry himself Voldemort? Is Voldemort his own shadow self, his hidden dark side? Has Harry committed some unspeakable act of evil that has led his mind to separate his conscious self from its dark shadow?_

The scar. The scar is what binds Harry and Voldemort together. I need to find out more about Harry's scar.

As his mother came to pick Harry up at the end of our last session this week, I asked him to wait in the front office with Miss McGonagall for a few minutes. Harry, who has taken a liking to the kind Miss McGonagall, complied quite willingly, and very soon the two of them were eagerly occupied in a lively discussion about Quidditch strategies. Miss McGonagall is quite the sports fan, and she seems deeply fascinated by this bizarre game.

I led the charming Lily into my office and closed the door. She sat down at the edge of a chair and looked at me with apprehension. There was something almost pre-Raphaelite about her beauty, her masses of red curls, luminous green eyes and alabaster skin…_ Ah, but which one are you, Lily? The grief-stricken Lady of Shalott? Or, _I thought to myself, suddenly and absurdly,_ La Belle Dame Sans Merci, the lovely lady who has no mercy…_

I shook the odd thought out of my head. Good God, it won't do for the doctor to start hallucinating as well!

Lily accepted the cup of tea I offered her and looked up at me with a look of deep concern. "How is Harry doing? Are you making any progress, Dr. Dumbledore?"

I nodded reassuringly. "Some progress, yes. But there is still a great deal I do not understand about the extraordinary world Harry has created for himself. But since Harry is unwilling to talk about anything outside the emotionally safe boundaries of Hogwarts, I was wondering if I could ask you a question about his past?"

"Anything! Anything at all that can help you heal him…"

"Well, my question is quite simple really. He talks a great deal about an evil sorcerer called Voldemort…"

"Yes," Lily whispered. "I have heard him say that name often, but I can make no sense of the things that he is saying…"

The afternoon sunlight streamed through the window and fell golden on Lily's flaming curls. I wondered, idly, how many men had lost their sanity over Lily's incandescent hair…

I managed to pull myself together. "Ah, well, don't worry about that for now," I said. "What intrigues me is that Harry seems to feel some kind of _connection_ to this shadowy Voldemort, and that this bond between them has to do with his scar…."

"With his scar-?" Lily's voice was almost inaudible. Her teacup dropped to the floor and shattered.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Dr. Dumbledore. Let me clean that up…" In spite of my protestations, Lily busied herself with picking up the shards and mopping up the tea with her handkerchief. Her red curls fell in front of her face like a veil, concealing her expression from me.

_How very curious! _

I took the soggy handkerchief from her hand. "Perhaps you could tell me again, Mrs. P, how exactly Harry got his scar-?"

She remained motionless for a moment. Then she shook her hair back and looked at me, her expression composed, but her face whiter than snow. There was no emotion at all in her brilliant green eyes. Frozen. She looked frozen. _Petrified?_

"I already told you, Dr. Dumbledore. Harry fell down when he was a baby. He hit his head on the corner of the fireplace."

She smiled, and her smile was as lovely as ever. "If that was all, I should bring Harry home now. Thank you, doctor."

She opened the door and left, and voices drifted in to me from the front office: "But what I don't _understand, _Harry, is the disproportionately large point value assigned to the Snitch relative to…" followed by "Come on, Harry dear, it is time to go home now."

I stood there, foolishly clutching the tea-sodden handkerchief in my hand.

_What are you hiding, Lily? _


	3. Chapter 3

_From the Files of Dr. Dumbledore: _

_The Case of Harry P., Week 3:_

But perhaps Lily is not the only one with a secret to hide. The more I learn about James P., the more I begin to suspect that there is more to this quiet, respectable family man than meets the eye. Harry's delusions are rich in symbolic father figures, and they add up to a rather disturbing picture.

_Hogwarts is guarded by the terrifying dementors, sinister creatures who cause humans to re-live their worst memories. The mad murderer Sirius Black has escaped from the wizard prison Azkaban, and Harry learns that Black, his godfather, was a close friend of Lily and James. But Sirius betrayed Lily and James to Voldemort, murdered their friend Peter Pettigrew, and a number of innocent bystanders as well. A new teacher, Remus Lupin, befriends Harry and teaches him the Patronus charm, which will protect him against the dread of the dementors. Harry's patronus, his personal protector, is a stag, like his father's. Harry, Ron, and Hermione discover the escaped convict Sirius Black in the haunted Shrieking Shack; Black is an animagus who has been concealing himself as a dog. But Sirius Black is innocent; Peter Pettigrew was the betrayer, living among them in the form of a rat, and he is still alive. They discover that Lupin is a werewolf, and he transforms into a monster at full moon, threatening to attack Harry and his friends. Pettigrew escapes, and Black is captured. Black is awaiting the terrifying punishment of the dementors: they will perform a "kiss" that will suck his soul out of his body. But Dumbledore tells Hermione to use her "time turner" to travel back in time with Harry, and they are able to help Sirius Black escape. _

Harry's hallucinations are increasingly dominated by his uneasy relationship with his father. His ambivalent feelings towards his father are reflected in his splitting of the father figure into four distinct personas: The ideal dead father James, the ambiguous werewolf Lupin (both mentor and monster in one), the innocently accused criminal Sirius, and Peter, the betrayer. Together, they form a deeply ambivalent figure: the father as traitor and protector, criminal and guiltless, victim and murderer in one…

This four-fold father figure is capable of fantastic transformations: All the four Marauders (as he calls them) can change their forms at will, from animal to man, and from man to animal. Lupin's terrifying transformation from mild-mannered mentor into murderous monster is perhaps the most striking of all. Remus Lupin… Named, no doubt after Remus, the mythical founder of Rome, who was killed by his own brother Romulus, just as Remus Lupin is overcome by his own shadow side…

_Do you have a shadow side, too, James? You, the father, the protector – what sinister transformations are you capable of? _

_But James' patronus is a stag… _An ancient Christ symbol, and surely not a symbol of evil. The patronus – a lovely representation of the psyche's ability to draw strength from its happiest moments and fend off dark thoughts.

But one cannot help but notice, of course, that the patronus has erotic undertones as well, especially paired with the obvious phallic symbolism of the wand: _Something silver erupted from his wand…_ Not an uncommon experience in adolescent boys who are contemplating their "happiest memories"… Ahem. But in this case, Harry's patronus assumes the _same form as his father's, _which is both odd and a little disturbing…Some underlying oedipal rivalry here, no doubt… _His father, his protector, his rival…_

I am fascinated by the time-turner, the device that helps Harry re-live and amend the past. Significantly, I am the one who suggests to Hermione, his lucid intellect, that she travel back in time. Yes, that is what we are doing, Harry, we are traveling back in time through our sessions together, to discover what wrongs were committed in the past that need to be set right…

The dementors represent, of course, the depression that overwhelms Harry from time to time. His depression forces him to relive his darkest moments, and it is only by drawing on his happiest memories that he is able to dispel them – a most convincing symbolic representation of depression, if I may say so. The dementors are yet another example of how his inner feelings are reified in his hallucinations, represented as distinct characters.

It is sometimes difficult for me to determine when the characters in Harry's delusions are mere symbolic manifestations of his thoughts and fears and when they represent actual persons from his life. I decided that James P. would be the man to turn to for some answers.

As he has been the one to bring Harry to his appointments with me this week (Lily seems to be avoiding me, I have noticed), it was easy enough to schedule a visit with the enigmatic James. The helpful Miss McGonagall was, as always, willing to engage Harry in conversation about Quidditch in the meantime. _Very willing. _I was somewhat amused to find some sketches on her desk last week depicting a sportsman on a broomstick apparently plunging to his untimely death, with the caption: "A Better Strategy: The Wronski Feint". Who this unfortunate Wronski is, or why he is hell-bent on his own destruction, is a complete mystery to me. But it all made sense to Harry, apparently, for when Miss McGonagall shared her sketch with him, he declared her to be brilliant. I _hope_ she is just playing along for Harry's sake, but there was a glint of mania in her eyes I definitely need to observe closely in the future…

"So, what can I do for you, doctor?" James asked as soon as my office door closed behind us. He sat down in one of the chairs, but comfortably, not on the edge like Lily. "Is there anything at all I can do to help? You are our last hope; we have seen countless doctors, and Harry just seems to be getting worse, more hopelessly lost in his own delusions."

He ran his hair through his messy dark hair. "For God's sake - you have to help my son, doctor!"

The concerned father. Very touching. But I'm an old man, and I have seen more than most. The darkest secrets can hide behind the most innocent of faces…

"I was wondering if you could tell me more about Mr. Black," I said.

James sat very still for a moment. Then he sighed and messed his hair up again.

"Black. Yes, I thought he might enter into this somehow."

I leaned forward. "So there is a real Sirius Black, then?"

"Sirius-?" James sounded puzzled. "No. Never heard that name, but _Reggie Black…"_

_Reggie? All right, let's hear about Reggie. _

He sighed deeply. "Reggie Black was one of my best friends. He is Harry's godfather, actually…"

_Is he, now?_

"We knew each other from school, Reggie and I. We were quite inseparable, actually. We got into quite a bit of trouble together…" A faraway smile lit up James' handsome, serious face for a minute.

He continued, dreamily: "And then, later, one would have thought that we would have gone our separate ways, since our lifestyles were so different. But we remained the best of friends, even after he became a minor rock star and I became a mundane attorney…"

_A minor rock star? Ah, Sirius! The star Sirius. There we go…_

"He used to come over quite a bit. I was quite flattered that he still preferred my company now that he was something of a celebrity. He used to come over almost every evening for dinner. He played with Harry, who adored him. He was… he was like a second father to Harry…"

_Like a second father…_

James went on: 'Harry loved and admired Reggie with all his heart. Reggie was, well, _exciting, _in a way I could never be… Reggie was so terribly handsome, with his wild dark curls and his ready smile…"

James smiled a little.

"And of course, he was a _rock star, _and there were all these girls who were swooning over him…" James' voice grew harsher. "I thought it was a little odd, you know, that Reggie never seemed at all interested in any of them. He seemed to prefer coming over to spend quiet evenings with us instead, with his old school friend and his family…"

He paused for a moment. Then he said, very quietly. "I was a complete fool, Dr. Dumbledore. I never suspected a thing. I thought, all along, that Reggie came over because of _me, _and for Harry's sake, of course. And then…"

He swallowed.

"And then one evening, I caught him kissing Lily…."

_Ah, the lovely Lily… Why am I not surprised?_

"Of course it wasn't her fault. Not her fault at all. He… he simply accosted her one evening while I had to return to work, and if I hadn't happened to walk in at that precise moment, who knows what he would have done to her…"

_Yes. Who knows-?_

"I kicked him out of the house, of course. Told him that he was never to set foot in my home again. He.. he was a traitor, a Judas… All this time, I thought he was my friend… "

_Ah, the Judas kiss. The dementor's kiss…_

James' voice trembled. "It was hard on Harry, of course. Desperately hard on Harry. He adored Reggie, thought the world of him… and we could never explain to him why Reggie had suddenly disappeared from our lives. I'm afraid that I… I told Harry that Reggie had run into some trouble with the law and had to go into hiding for a while. He seemed to believe me; it wouldn't have been the first time, you know… Reggie already had some minor drug charges on his record… Although God knows what Harry overheard in the aftermath of this incident…"

He looked at me, helplessly. "Do you really think that this could have caused Harry's illness, Doctor? The sudden loss of his godfather?"

I shook my head, slowly. "Oh, no, I think there would have had to be more than that…"

"Really?" James looked relieved. "I felt so bad for Harry, but what could I do, Doctor? I could not allow Reggie back into my house after… after what he did. He could have had any woman he wanted, anyone at all. But not Lily. _Lily is mine, Dr. Dumbledore…"_

_Lily is mine. _There was something about the way he said those simple words that made me think, suddenly, that James is a very dangerous man indeed…

_Most interesting…_

"Just one more question, Mr. P."

"Yes?"

"Do you happen to recall how exactly Harry got his scar?"

James was prepared for the question. He answered readily. "His scar? Yes, of course, he fell down when he was a baby. Lily and I both felt horrible about not being able to catch him in time. He hit his head on the corner of the sofa table as he fell. Poor little baby…"

James' voice was full of tenderness, of caring.

_A good man, a loving father. _

Curious, though, what he said about Harry hitting his head on the sofa table as a baby. I could have sworn Lily said it was the fireplace…


	4. Chapter 4

_From the Files of Dr. Dumbledore_

_The Case of Harry P., Week 4:_

Harry's delusions are a labyrinth of tangled memories and sinister symbols… No wonder, then, that a labyrinth, with a dark secret at the center, is central to his hallucinations as well.

Harry speaks of a "maze", but what he describes is a labyrinth. A maze has no center. It is designed to confuse, to bewilder, to lead astray; but a labyrinth has a center, a hidden heart, that the wanderer must find. What is at the center of the phantasmagoric labyrinth Harry's mind has constructed to protect its secret?

_Harry has nightmares about Voldemort, and his scar is hurting. In his dream, he sees Voldemort killing an old man, and Harry is next... Harry attends the Quidditch World Cup with Hermione and the Weasleys. But someone conjures the Dark Mark, Voldemort's own sign, consisting of a skull with a serpent protruding from its mouth. As terror ensues, a family of four Muggles is turned upside down in the air by Voldemort's death eaters. Back at Hogwarts, they encounter a strange new teacher, the one-eyed, one-legged Alastor Moody. Moody has a magical all-seeing eye instead of the one he has lost, hence he is nicknamed "Mad-Eye". The eccentric Moody becomes Harry's new mentor. Moody teaches the students about the "unforgivable curses": The Imperius curse that controls the mind, the Cruciatus curse that tortures, and the Killing curse ("Avada Kedavra") that kills .The fabled Triwizard Tournament will take place at Hogwarts. Students from two other schools, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, will visit Hogwarts for the year. The magical Goblet of Fire will select one student from each school to compete. But the goblet unexpectedly picks a fourth champion: Harry himself. Harry must compete against the handsome and popular Cedric Diggory from Hogwarts, the beautiful Fleur Delacour from Beaxbatons, and the sports star Viktor Krum from Durmstrang. Harry communicates secretly with Sirius, whose head magically shows up in the common room fire. In the First Task of the Triwizard Tournament, the champions have to retrieve a golden egg guarded by a dragon. Harry needs a partner for the Yule Ball and invites the lovely Cho Chang, but she is going with Cedric instead. Harry ends up going to the ball with Parvati Patil, but he fails to pay attention to her. Ron's date with Parvati's twin sister, Padma, is equally unsuccessful. Harry has to find a way to open the golden dragon's egg; Cedric tells him to open it under water. In the Second Task, Harry has to rescue Ron from under the lake, but he wants to rescue Hermione, Cho, and Fleur's sister as well. Harry learns more about the past from looking into a magical tank in Dumbledore's office, the Pensieve. He learns that the ministry official Barty Crouch turned his own son over to the dementors for being on Voldemort's side. In the Third Task, the champions enter a maze. They are attacked by monsters, and Harry answers the riddle of the sphinx. Harry and Cedric reach the Triwizard Cup simultaneously. But the cup is a portkey, a device that magically transports them both elsewhere. They find themselves in a graveyard where Tom Riddle's father is buried. Voldemort appears, and orders Cedric killed ("Kill the spare!"). Voldemort regains his physical body with the help of the betrayer Peter Pettigrew, who dips the shapeless baby-like Voldemort into a cauldron that holds Voldemort's father's bone, Peter's hand, and Harry's blood. Harry and Voldmort duel, but Harry receives help from his dead parents and is able to escape. He brings the dead Cedric back to Hogwarts with him. Then Harry discovers that Moody is not who he seems to be; he is actually Barty Crouch's son who has assumed Moody's form through drinking the magical Polyjuice Potion. Barty Crouch Jr. has killed his own father in revenge for his father's heartless abandonment, and will now kill Harry. But Harry is rescued at the last minute by McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Snape. Dumbledore tells the students that they must know the truth about Cedric's death: He was killed by Voldemort._

Ah, the number four again! The fourfold father figure of the marauders, and now the four champions as well! I think Harry mentioned, too, that the imaginary Hogwarts has four mythical founders? But Harry's psyche always seems to divide these groups of four into three and one: The three that are good, and the one that is evil. Three of the marauders are good, but Peter is the betrayer. Three of the Hogwarts founders are good, but Slytherin is evil. There is one among the four who does not belong, the outsider. Three champions lived, but Cedric had to die… _Kill the spare_… Why? So the group of four can be restored to the perfect three? It is interesting that the family of Muggles turned upside down by the death eaters at the World Cup is a family of _four. _Some evil has arrived, something that _turns the family upside down…_ Is it his own family Harry is thinking about, perhaps?

Dudley. Harry's little brother is the fourth member of their family, the one who by his very existence disturbed the ideal trinity of father, mother, and son. Is this why Harry's mind is obsessed with the idea of the fourth as the intruder, the outsider, the betrayer, because of the jealousy and hatred he feels towards his brother? Is he secretly wishing that Dudley will die, so he can yet again be alone with his mother and father? The _Triwizard Tournament…_ According to its name, this competition should include three wizards, and yet there is a fourth… Always one extra, one that doesn't belong. What does this mean?

Who are the four champions? Do they represent four aspects of Harry himself? Cedric is perhaps Harry's idealized alter ego, the _other _Hogwarts champion, the _other_ Quidditch player, the _other_ rival for Cho's affections, similar to Harry in all things, but better… Viktor Krum is yet another Quidditch seeker, but sterner, more gruff – a harsher side of Harry? _Viktor, _the victorious one. And then there is the enchanting Fleur – Harry's female side, perhaps?

Or perhaps the four champions represent the four members of Harry's family: Perhaps Cedric is a representation of Dudley, Harry's much to perfect little brother. _Viktor. _Another V name, like Vernon and Voldemort… Does Viktor Krum, like the Uncle Vernon, represent Harry's father? And then there is the lovely Fleur of course… _Fleur._ The flower. A flower like Lily?

Harry's hallucinations are becoming increasingly complex and intricate. Multiple characters seem to represent the same ideas.

Harry goes to the Yule ball with Parvati, and his friend and alter ego Ron with her double, Padma. According to ancient Hindu myths, Parvati, the mother goddess, is married to Shiva, the god of destruction. She is furious with her husband for beheading her son, and demands that he finds the child a new head, the head of an elephant. _The protective mother and the destructive father…_ Now, that's interesting! Especially considering that Parvati's identical sister is _named after a flower. _"Padma", the ancient Indian word for lotus flower or water lily. Lily…

And then we have Alastor Moody, the mentor who is a murderer in disguise… _Alastor…_ An avenging spirit in Greek mythology, I believe? Perhaps that is why Mad-Eye Moody is missing an eye; his very appearance recalls the old saying "An eye for an eye…". _But Mad-Eye Moody is not what he seems. _He is the abandoned son, who seeks revenge on his father. He kills his father, like Tom Riddle kills his. Is Moody simply Tom Riddle's doppelganger? Or Harry's?

_Avada Kedavra_, the killing curse. Harry's erudition continues to amaze me. He even knows some ancient Aramaic! Not bad! _Abada k'dabra_, "may it be destroyed as I speak..."

But I am an old man with many books, Harry, and I know that _Avada Kedavra_ was never a killing curse. This formula was used often enough in ancient Aramaic magical texts, but it was a _healing spell_. The ancient healers used these words to destroy the _diseases_ that afflicted the sick and the suffering. How curious, then, that the healing formula has turned into a killing curse in Harry's mind... How can healing become murder?

_Murder_… Murder seems to play an increasingly important part in Harry's hallucinations: Cedric, Harry's double, his ideal self, is killed, and both Barty Crouch Jr. and Tom Riddle murder their fathers… What's behind this dwelling on patricide, the murder of the father?

And the Riddle of the Sphinx, too! In his hallucinations, Harry must answer the riddle of the Sphinx, right before he is whisked away to a graveyard where Voldemort's murdered father lies buried! Interesting, Harry…

I seem to recall that there was a famous literary character who had to answer the riddle of the Sphinx, shortly before he went on _to kill his own father._ _Oedipus,_ who murdered his father and married his mother… And in his guilt upon discovering what he had done, he poked his eyes out… (Is the one-eyed Moody perhaps a symbol of this oedipal impulse as well?)

That Harry subconsciously hates his father is clear, but why does he hate him? What crime has his father committed?

The Triwizard tournament is rich in symbolism as well, sinister as well as erotic. The Triwizard cup itself, the ultimate goal of the quest, is a Grail-like vessel. As in the Arthurian Grail legends, the chosen "knights" must overcome great dangers in their search for the cup. Curiously, there is a great deal of birth imagery surrounding this quest in Harry's mind.

Harry risks his life to snatch the golden egg from a fire-breathing dragon. A dragon that guards its eggs must be female, a mother guarding its offspring. But one of the eggs is different from the others, golden in color. What does this egg contain? A baby dragon, one would have thought, but no: _It contains a secret, a clue._

But the secret cannot be accessed directly; its voice can only be heard _under water_, or its words will be nothing but an unbearable scream. Why under water? Perhaps water represents an otherworld of sorts? A realm of death? In the second task, Harry must save innocent victims from what he believes to be death by water. _The waters of the womb? _

The cup itself is an ancient womb symbol, which puts Harry and Cedric's vying for this vessel into a rather interesting light. Are they sexual rivals, perhaps? But this cup _is not what it seems_; it throws the two rivals into the hands of the waiting Voldemort.

_And then Voldemort himself is born, _from a different vessel, from a more sinister Grail: He emerges from the cauldron, from the dark womb, born from blood, born from sacrifice.

Voldemort wishes to kill Harry, but he fails. Harry is protected by his mother's love. Who, or what, is Voldemort? A distortion of James? Or some dark aspect of Harry's own psyche, a long forgotten guilt, telling him he deserves to die… for what? _What have you done, Harry?_

Whatever the truth is, Harry's subconscious seems to be willing to let me help him find it. I am fascinated by the image of the Pensieve he believes I have in my possession, the magical vessel that helps us look, together, into the past. And he seems to find some comfort in his belief that I refuse to let the murder of Cedric Diggory remain forgotten. _If only I understood what this represents…_

And then there is the figure of Snape again, always there to hurt Harry, but to rescue him in the end. If only I understood what Snape stood for, I could get to the bottom of this mystery…


	5. Chapter 5

_From the Files of Dr. Dumbledore_

_The Case of Harry P., Week 5_

I received a phone call from Lily P. She said she didn't feel that my sessions with Harry were helping him at all, and she wanted to discontinue the therapy. After a _very_ lengthy conversation, I managed to convince her to let the sessions continue.

But she is nervous. Very nervous. _There is something she does not want me to discover._

I have begun to notice a more sinister mood in Harry's hallucinations. His delusions are now suffused with imagery of suffering, martyrdom, and death. I feel deeply uneasy about this.

_**Dementors come to Number 4, Privet Drive, where Harry lives with the Dursleys. They attack Harry and Dudley, but Harry is able to defend them both. But he wasn't supposed to use magic outside Hogwarts, so he faces a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Magic. Aunt Petunia reveals that she knows what dementors are – how does she know about the wizarding world? Wizards try to keep their world a secret from Muggles, from the non-magical population. **_

The borders between the magical world of Hogwarts and the ordinary world of the Dursleys are beginning to blur in Harry's imagination; the two realities are beginning to overlap. Perhaps the boundaries between Harry's hallucinations and his real life are beginning to dissolve as well. I thought it was a particularly good sign that he wishes to rescue Dudley from the terrifying dementors. Perhaps Harry's feelings towards his little brother are becoming less hostile. He wants to protect him from the dark forces… If only I knew what these dark forces are!

And how interesting, how very interesting, that Petunia, his mother's alter ego, _knows more than she is letting on._

The Dursleys live at Number 4, do they? We encounter yet again that curious idea of the number four consisting of a trinity plus one outsider: Petunia, Vernon, and Dudley as the ideal nuclear family, and Harry as the intruder…

_**Harry is rescued from the Dursleys by members of The Order of the Phoenix, a secret order devoted to stopping Voldemort, founded by Dumbledore. The secret headquarters of the Order is at Grimmauld Place, Sirius Black's ancestral home. Harry is reunited with his godfather, and learns of the Black family's dark history. He sees Sirius' family tree on a tapestry, and learns that Sirius' dead brother, Regulus, was a death eater. Sirius' name was removed from the family tree, but Harry sees that Sirius is related to the Malfoys, Draco's family, and to the Lestranges, who are death eaters. **_

Ah, the phoenix, the ancient symbol of death and resurrection, of hope and new life! In Harry's mind, I am the founder of the order named after this fantastic creature – perhaps because our sessions are offering him the hope of a new life? That is an encouraging thought.

But there is something quite disturbing about the grimness of Grimmauld Place, the Grim Old Place, the home of the Black family. The Blacks cast Sirius out of their family, much like Harry's own father kicked Reggie Black out of their home. Reggie. _Regulus__!_ Regulus seems to be Sirius' double, the dark aspect of his soul. The death eater. But his name, Regulus, signals who this character really is: Reggie Black, the charming godfather with the shadow side, Sirius-Regulus, the Gryffindor and Slytherin in one! I wonder what makes Harry think his godfather had a dark side. Yes, I wonder… _And now Regulus is dead. _

_I wonder what did happen to Reggie Black? _

The Black family is related to the Malfoys, Harry tells me. And so is Harry's own family, in a symbolic sense… The Malfoys. The Dursleys. The Malfoys _are_ the Dursleys!The pure-blood wizarding family and the stubbornly non-magical Muggles are curiously alike, two sides of the same coin. Each family consists of father, mother, and beloved son. The father is dangerous, evil. The mother is wrapped up in her obsessive love for her odious son. Both sons are Harry's rivals. _Petunia. Narcissa. Lily - _three mothers with flower names! A _narcissus_ is a type of _lily_, I believe? It seems to me that the Malfoys, like the Dursleys, represent Harry's own family. But is Draco then simply a symbolic representation of Harry's jealousy of little Dudley? _Or is he the dark side of Harry himself? The Harry who is sorted into Slytherin?_ Draco, "the dragon". Or the serpent? Perhaps Draco is Harrys's Slytherin potential.

_**At the hearing, Dumbledore intervenes, and Harry is cleared of all charges. Arthur and Molly Weasley treat him like their son. He discovers that Mrs. Weasley's boggart, the personification of her greatest fear, is the loss of one of her children, or of Harry.**_

Harry's feelings towards his parents are deeply ambivalent. His love for them, and their love for him, is evident is his lovely vision of the Weasley family. Molly Weasley is the warm and caring side of his mother, the part of her that worries desperately about her son. And Arthur Weasley is the deeply concerned father that dwells in James… But why does Harry's loving mother visualize his death? Perhaps all parents, deep down, fear the death of their children, or perhaps there is more to Molly Weasley's boggart than meets the eye.

_**When they arrive at Hogwarts, Harry is horrified to see that the school carriages are pulled by thestrals, dark skeletal horses, invisible to those who have not seen death. He befriends the eccentric student Luna Lovegood. He is frustrated to learn that the other students are reluctant to believe his story about Voldemort killing Cedric.**_

Harry sees something that others can't see, knows of a secret that others deny. What is that terrible truth that the others refuse to face? Thestrals, only visible to those how have seen death… I do not like the sound of this at all.

Luna Lovegood's name evokes both the moon and lunacy. Is she perhaps a personification of Harry's own madness? If so, it may be a good sign that he perceives his madness to be "Lovegood", that which loves the good. Perhaps his illness will lead to good, once we discover what lies at the root of it?

_**A sinister new teacher arrives, Dolores Umbridge, a seemingly sweet lady, surrounded by lace and doilies, who enjoys torturing Harry for saying that Voldemort is back. She makes him write lines as punishment, but the words he writes are painfully inscribed in blood on his hand. Several people seem to believe that Harry is a liar, or mentally disturbed. Umbridge is appointed High Inquisitor at Hogwarts, and she wants to make sure the students don't hear about Voldemort or the Dark Arts. **_

Dolores Umbridge. A more dreadful version of Aunt Petunia, and perhaps of Lily as well? Dolores Umbridge – her name evokes the Latin _dolor _and _umbra, _pain and shadow. The lady of pain and shadow… She inflicts suffering on Harry, pain, martyrdom. Harry's symbolic martyrdom is underscored both by his bloody hand, reminiscent of Christ's stigmata, and Umbridge's title as High Inquisitor (torturing those who stubbornly refuse to confess to _her_ faith). Is Umbridge Lily's grim shadow self? Could _Lily_ inflict pain and suffering on her own son? Or is Lily the one in pain, the Mary-like _mater dolorosa, _the suffering mother who observes her son's martyrdom, his necessary sacrifice? The _cruciatus _curse that causes unbearable pain reminds me of the term _crucifixion. Crucio – _"I torture". _Or "I crucify"? _There is something here I cannot quite grasp, but it chills me to the bone. I am convinced that Lily, like Umbridge, does not want to hear the truth about Voldemort, whatever or whoever he represents. _How exactly did Harry get his scar?_

_**Harry, Ron, and Hermione organize a secret student order, Dumbledore's Army, devoted to Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harry's scar is hurting, and he dreams of a windowless corridor. He talks to Sirius' head in the fire. Arthur Weasley is attacked by Nagini, Voldemort's serpent, but Harry sees it in a vision and is able to get help. Harry is disturbed by the knowledge that in his vision, he was the snake that attacked Mr. Weasley. Harry and the Weasley children visit Mr. Weasley in the hospital. They meet their friend Neville, who is visiting his parents. Neville's parents were tortured to insanity by the death eaters, and now they can no longer communicate with him. **_

Neville appears to be Harry's alter ego. How interesting, then, that his parents are unequivocally good, but so tortured by their encounter with the dark forces _that they are no longer able to speak to him. _I am certain that Lily and James know, on some level, what the terrible secret at the heart of Harry's illness is. But whatever it is, they are so tortured by the thought of it that they have lost their ability to communicate, just like Neville's unfortunate parents.

But the secret will out. Arthur Weasley, who represents the very best side of James, is attacked by the serpent. Nagini is oddly reminiscent of the Basilisk, the hidden monster that rises from the depths. _The hidden secret will not leave them alone. _But why does Harry see this scene through the snake's eyes? _Is he the serpent?_ _Is he Voldemort? _Is this yet another symbolic manifestation of his unconscious wish to kill his father?

_**Umbridge finds out about Dumbledore's Army, and she replaces Dumbledore as Head of Hogwarts, instigating a reign of terror. Fred and George leave Hogwarts after setting off a series of fireworks, including Catherine's Wheels. Hagrid introduces Harry and Hermione to his half-brother, the wild giant Grawp. **_

Ah, yes, Lily did want me replaced at the "head of Hogwarts", as the doctor treating Harry's illness! I seem to be somewhat more stubborn than my wizard counterpart, though. I am still here, thank you very much!

I am beginning to develop a fondness for the imaginary Fred and George, the pranksters who rebel against the repressive Umbridge. George. Isn't Saint George a legendary dragon slayer, a serpent slayer? We need one of those in this fantastic dream world where serpents and dragons abound! But strangely, Fred and George's wild rebellion also evokes martyrdom and suffering, in the form of Catherine's Wheels. Oh, I know that St. Catherine's Wheels are a kind of fireworks, but still: St. Catherine was tortured to death on a wheel, wasn't she? Most disturbing.

Hagrid's love for his half-brother Grawp is quite endearing. Grawp, the run amok wild creature who is struggling to form words, may indeed be a representation of Harry's own brother, Dudley, as a young child. Many older siblings are startled by the uncivilized nature of their little brothers and sisters… Hagrid's insistence on protecting his brother reflects, I believe, Harry's own growing attachment to Dudley.

_**Harry dreams of Sirius being tortured, and he flies to London on thestrals, along with his friends, to rescue Sirius. At the Ministry of Magic, they find a prophecy in the Department of Mysteries, represented as a small glass sphere. But the Death Eaters arrive, and Sirius is killed by Bellatrix Lestrange, who loves Voldemort. Voldemort himself appears, but Harry is saved from the killing curse by Dumbledore. Dubledore is reinstated as headmaster, and Dolores Umbridge is carried off by centaurs in the Forbidden Forest. Harry learns the contents of the prophecy about him and Voldemort, made by the eccentric divination teacher, Sybill Trelawney: And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.**_

Sirius is dead! Yet another father figure is murdered! Does Sirius' death simply represent Reggie's unexpected disappearance from Harry's life, or is there another, more sinister meaning to this?

Sirius is murdered by Bellatrix, whose name means "female warrior". Who is this fierce female warrior? Why did Bellatrix kill Sirius? Out of devotion to Voldemort? Who, or what, is she, she who loves the Dark Lord?

I am happy to hear that I am again reinstated as headmaster of Hogwarts in Harry's mind. I wonder why I lost that position momentarily? Was it because Lily threatened to discontinue our sessions?

There is something hidden in the aptly named Department of Mysteries. Sybill Trelawney has made a prophecy, an enigmatic truth statement, hidden within a fragile ball of glass. _Sybill_, named after the ancient Greek prophetesses, the sibyls. Didn't one of the sibyls live at Delphi, where the god Apollo killed the terrible serpent _Python?_ Serpents seem to be woven into the very fabric of Harry's hallucinations.

But what is the meaning of the bizarre prophecy? _Neither can live while the other survives. _There seems to be some deeper significance to this phrase, although at the moment it eludes me. _The Dark Lord will mark him as his equal. _Mark him how? Through the scar, perhaps, that scar whose origins Harry's parents are so very elusive about?

Who is the Dark Lord? _Voldemort. Vol de mort_ in French, "flight from death". From whose death? Who is Voldmort, and _why does he so desperately want Harry dead?_


	6. Chapter 6

[Author's note: Thanks for the reviews! I love reading your comments. No, this will not be a story about child abuse. No slash, no squick, no vampires, no aliens. And yes, there will be a lot more about Snape, and about Draco, and of course Tom Riddle. SalonK, interesting observation about Dudley's parentage! One wonders about his dark curls…]

_From the Files of Dr. Dumbledore_

_The Case of Harry P., Week 6_

Dear me, I certainly _hope _that the events that take place in Harry's hallucinations are symbolic! First I lose my hand, and then I am finished off by the killing curse? What a week we are having, Harry!

_**Narcissa Malfoy and her sister Bellatrix visit Snape. Voldemort has asked Draco to carry out a terrible task. Narcissa pleads with Snape; he promises to fulfill the task himself is Draco fails.**_

How touching – a mother pleading for her child! Are the sisters Narcissa and Bellatrix aspects of the same person, I wonder? The good mother who wants to save her child, and the dark non-mother who says: Sacrifice him! Snape, the inscrutable Snape, always lingering betwixt and between, both good and evil, promises to help the mother save her son. But he will save him by committing some dreadful act. What is it Snape must do?

Are Narcissa and Bellatrix both aspects of Lily? If so, which part of Lily wants to save her son – _and which part doesn't? _And why does Snape make his dreadful promise? What motivates him? A desire to protect the boy? Love for the boy's beautiful mother? Or something else?

_**Dumbledore and Harry go to see Horace Slughorn. Dumbledore's hand is injured, but he will not say why. Initially, Slughorn does not want to return to Hogwarts as a teacher, but he promises to do so for Harry's sake, and because he remembers Harry's mother fondly.**_

Another character who makes a promise, for the sake of a mother and her son! Is Slughorn somehow Snape's double?

_Horace._ Named after the Greek poet perhaps, who wrote such stirring verse about lost love and the futility of pursuing married women? Are we seeing another long-lost admirer of Lily's here? _Slughorn. _Since slugs don't normally have horns, I can only conclude that Harry has been reading old books again. Browning, perhaps, and his tragic _Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came? _When the doomed Childe Roland finally arrives at the Dark Tower, he sees the ghosts of those who have died before him: "_I saw them all, and I knew them all, and yet/Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set…" _ The slug-horn, the battle horn, the knell of death?

_**Harry, Ron, and Hermione secretly follow Draco to Borgin and Burkes, a shop that sells dark artifacts. Draco is up to something, but what? Harry begins to suspect that Malfoy is a death eater, branded with Voldemort's dark mark.**_

What do we make of the sinister merchants Borgin and Burkes? The shady Mr. Borgin's name evokes both the French _borgne, _"shady", and the murderous Borgia family. And wasn't Burke a famous Scottish serial killer? Not precisely the most wholesome company for the young Draco, are they?

_Draco is marked by the Dark Lord. _And so is Harry, of course, which confirms my idea that Draco and Harry are one. Both boys carry the dark wizard's mark, Draco on his arm, and Harry on his forehead. Is Harry's scar a dark mark, too, I wonder? Harry tells me that the Death Eaters can feel Voldemort's presence through their scars. Well, so can Harry, apparently; his delusions are full of references to his scar hurting as his mind fills with Voldemort's thoughts.

Strangely, the dual scars bring to mind a Biblical verse: _And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes…_ But no, Harry and Draco's scars are the signs of a darker lord… Or the mark of Cain?

_I must find out how Harry got his scar!_

_**Snape is no longer teaching potions; Slughorn is. Harry borrows an old potions book that belonged to someone who called himself "The Half-Blood Prince". He follows the Prince's instructions, handwritten in the margin, and succeeds in making a perfect potion, which earns him a bottle of Felix Felicis, a luck potion, as a reward.**_

Ah, there are _two_ potions masters at Hogwarts now! Or are they one and the same? For even when Slughorn is teaching the class, it is The Half-Blood Prince who is Harry's true teacher. What Harry learns, he learns from the scribbles in the margins. As an analyst, I like the idea of a hidden subtext in the book, the text in the margin. Harry's own hallucinations also seem to be filled with secret margin notes and alternate meanings. Let's see what we can make of them, Harry!

Now, how are we to interpret the potion Felix Felicis? What an odd name! "The lucky of the lucky one?" "The blessed of the blessed?" I thought Harry's scar made him cursed. What makes him blessed, all of a sudden? And why does the potions master award him with this unexpected blessing?

_**Snape torments Harry as always and gives him detention. But Dumbledore trusts Snape and believes him to be good. Harry is taking private lessons with Dumbledore; they look into the Pensieve together and see Tom Riddle's past. The abusive wizard Morfin Gaunt is enraged to discover that his daughter Merope is in love with the handsome Muggle Tom Riddle. The desperate Merope gives Tom a love potion, and they have a child together: Tom Riddle Jr., who will become Lord Voldemort.**_

I do not know what to make of Snape. His very name is a riddle. (Or, perhaps, a Riddle? Now, there's a thought!) _Snape _sounds like "snake", but not quite. Snape, the man who is _almost_ a serpent…

And now we have _two_ Tom Riddles, a father and a son! His mother Merope recalls the Greek goddess who fell in love with a mortal and had to hide in shame, much like Merope Gaunt who loved a Muggle. But wasn't there another Merope as well? _Merope, the foster mother of Oedipus… _And just like Oedipus, the young Tom Riddle kills his father… We seem to come back to the theme of patricide yet again. How very interesting!

_**Ron and Hermione are falling for each other. Ginny is kissing Dean Thomas, which upsets both Harry and Ron. Eventually, Ron becomes involved with the clingy Lavender Brown, and Hemione is jealous.**_

Ron and Hermione, indeed? Are Harry's more intuitive self and his intellect finally coming to terms with one another? The red-haired Ginny kisses Dean… This must be an echo of the kiss between Reggie and Lily. So Harry knew about that? Interesting! Dean Thomas, who is he? Thomas. Tom. _Tom Riddle? _And then we have Lavender Brown, who kisses Ron so excessively, and whose name contains a flower and a color. Is she also a faint echo, a faded version, so to speak, of the kiss between _Lily_ and _Black?_ Lavender, another flower, and Brown, another Black?

_**Turning to the Pensieve again, Harry discovers that Merope, abandoned by her lover, gives birth to the young Tom and dies shortly thereafter. He is placed in a dreary orphanage, where he lives until Dumbledore brings him to Hogwarts. Tom is a solitary, friendless boy who likes to hurt other children.**_ _**In the Pensieve, Harry observes Tom Riddle as a schoolboy, asking Slughorn about Horcruxes, mysterious dark magical objects. He does not get an answer, but the memory seems to have been tampered with; Harry must get Slughorn to reveal the true memory to him.**_

The poor abandoned Tom! No wonder he hates his father, and perhaps his mother as well. He is orphaned, like Harry believes himself to be. Tom is left in the orphanage, as Harry is left with the Dursleys. Tom and Harry – how very similar they are!

What do the horcruxes represent, I wonder? The name is suggestive: _Horcrux. _Horror. Horrible. And _crux, _cross, crucifixion, excruciating, the Cruciatus curse… Whatever these horcruxes are, they are associated with pain, with suffering, with horror…

_**Harry drinks Felix Felicis and goes with Slughorn to Hagrid's hut, where Hagrid is weeping over a dead monstrous spider, Aragog. They help him bury Aragog, and Harry extracts the memory he needs from the drunk Slughorn.**_

The poor Hagrid, weeping of the death of a monster! The Hagrid character appears to have the capacity to love even the deadliest of creatures; I wonder if that is a characteristic Harry shares?

_**Harry learns what Horcruxes are: When a person commits murder, the soul of the murderer is fractured, and a piece of fragmented soul can be embedded in a physical object. The murderer will never die as long as the objects housing his soul are still intact. Dumbledore suspects that Riddle made several Horcruxes: A ring that Dumbledore destroyed when hurting his hand, the diary Harry destroyed, a locket, a cup, and the serpent Nagini.**_

The horcruxes… Memories of murder. A fragmented soul, locked in the tangible reminders of a terrible act… I am, apparently, helping Harry open these terrifying memories, but at the cost of my hand. Why my hand? Why must I lose part of my body to see what is inside the memory?

A ring, a diary, a locket, a cup, a serpent. What _are_ these things? And what secret does Harry believe they hold?

_**Harry is worried about the similarities between himself and Riddle, but Dumbledore assures him that they are very different indeed: Harry possesses love, the force that the Dark Lord does not know.**_

Well, that is reassuring. Harry is not Voldemort after all, or so he says…

_**Harry discovers that Snape is the Half-Blood Prince. Snape is the mistreated son of an abusive Muggle and a witch; his mother's maiden name was Eileen Prince.**_

Another abused half-blood, the son of a Muggle and a witch! This makes Snape sound very much like Tom Riddle. Eileen Prince… The name reminds me of the Arthurian legend of the noble Elaine, the Lady of Shalott, who dies of unrequited love for Lancelot, with a lily clutched in her hand. _Another lily!_

_**Harry and Dumbledore travel to a cave to destroy one of the horcruxes. Dumbledore must give some of his blood to gain entrance to the cave. There is a lake in the cave, and they find a boat to take them across to where the horcrux is. Dumbledore must drink a terrifying drink that causes excruciating pain in order to reach the locket at the bottom of the tank. He pleads with Harry to let him stop drinking, but Harry has to force him to go on. They get the locket, but Inferi, undead beings in the water, attack them.**_

Why are these terrible things happening to my Hogwarts counterpart all of a sudden? I must give of my own blood, drain the cup of pain… And Harry must force me to go in, in spite of the pain.

Ah, I get it! Our roles have become reversed! Perhaps the reversal makes this psychological journey easier on Harry. For I am the one who is forcing him to go on, to continue on this journey until the secret is uncovered, no matter how painful it is for him. Yes, you must continue, Harry, even if it causes you to face memories as chilling as those represented by the Inferi. Who are the Inferi, I wonder? Undead ghosts of the past, reaching for the living… 

_**The return, but find that the Dark Mark has appeared in the sky above Hogwarts. At the top of the Astronomy Tower, Draco is attempting to kill Dumbledore, but finds that he cannot do it. Snape arrives with a group of Death Eaters; Draco has let them into Hogwarts through a pair of identical Vanishing Cabinets, one in Borgin and Burkes, and one inside Hogwarts. Snape kills Dumbledore, who falls from the tower.**_

I am murdered by _Snape?_

But I thought my Hogwarts self trusted him? Surely, I cannot be that wrong about a person, even in the hallucinations of a disturbed teenager? How perplexing!

I am completely baffled by the character of Snape. Snape vowed to protect Draco, Harry's double, and yet _he is a murderer. _How can that be?

And why am I the one Voldemort wants killed? Perhaps because I know too much, because I am getting closer to his secret?

_**Snape and the Death Eaters escape. Harry discovers that the locket is a fake Horcrux; it has been replaced by a copy. After Dumbledore's funeral, Harry decides to find the rest of the Horcruxes and destroy them.**_

Identical lockets, identical vanishing cabinets. These hallucinations are getting very confusing. Does the fake locket serve as a reminder that even evil is not precisely what it seems?

At the end of our last session for this week, I walked Harry out into the waiting room, where his mother was waiting for him. Lily greeted Harry with a warm smile and a kiss on the cheek. How unbelievably lovely she is! In spite of her simple green dress and the plain silver chain around her neck, she could be a princess from a fairy tale…

_A silver chain..._ As Lily bent forward to kiss Harry, I saw that there was something attached to the end of the that chain, something half hidden under her dress.

It was a silver locket.


	7. Chapter 7

_From the Files of Dr. Dumbledore_

_The Case of Harry P., Week 7_

Harry's hallucinations are, if possible, growing even more vivid and intense. I sense that he is approaching some sort of psychological crisis, and perhaps a resolution as well.

_**Harry is preparing to leave the Dursleys for good. Unexpectedly, Dudley expresses gratitude towards Harry for saving his life. Aunt Petunia is hesitant; there appears to be something she wants to say to Harry, but she cannot bring herself to say it. **_

Dudley and Harry are becoming friendly, are they? My impression is that this is happening in the world outside the hallucinations as well. Harry's quest for a better self-understanding has, I think, alleviated his jealousy towards his brother to some extent.

I wonder what it was that Aunt Petunia was about to say? I suspect that her alter ego, Lily, has a great deal to tell Harry as well, if only she could overcome that which holds her back. What is it that makes her pause, I wonder? Shame? Love? _Dread? _

_**In order to deceive the waiting death eaters and allow Harry to escape unharmed, six of his friends drink Polyjuice potion and are transformed into exact copies of Harry. The death eaters attack, looking for the real Harry among the copies, but Harry himself is able to escape. He defends himself using the Expelliarmus spell that disarms without harming the opponent. Then Voldemort himself appears and tries to kill Harry. But he can't; Harry is magically protected by his wand, whose core is identical to Voldemort's. But Hedwig, Harry's white owl, is killed. George Weasley loses an ear to Snape, and Mad-Eye Moody is slain. **_

Ah, which one is the real Harry? And for that matter, which one is the real Lily, or the real James? Things are not what they seem to be…

How curious that Harry does not want to harm the death eaters, and how even more inconceivable that he does not wish to harm Voldemort himself! Why not fire off a killing curse, Harry? _Expelliarmus? _Why do you want to _expel_ the Dark Lord, rather than destroy him? Why do you want to _protect_ Voldemort?

_Is Harry himself the Dark Lord? _The core of Harry's wand is identical to Voldemort's. Is the core of their beings identical as well?

Harry grieves over the tragic loss of his snow-white bird, Hedwig. The bird is a frequent symbol of the soul in many cultures; does Hedwig symbolize Harry's soul as well? If so, what does it mean that she is killed?

Snape severs George Weasley's ear. How very odd! Why is George maimed in this manner? More and more characters in this hallucination bear their suffering imprinted on their bodies: My hand is withered, Moody has lost an eye and a leg, Draco carries the mark of Voldemort on his arm, Umbridge's "lines" are inscribed in blood on Harry's hand, George has lost an ear, and Harry has the scar on his forehead. But the real-world Harry has a scar too, the trace of past suffering on his living, breathing body. _What caused that scar?_

**They learn of the contents of Dumbledore's will. Dumbledore has left Harry a snitch and the sword of Gryffindor. Harry suspects that the snitch hides a secret inside, but he can't open it. Ron gets a deluminator, a magical device that can turn lights on, and Hermione a book written in ancient runes, **_**The Tales of Beedle of Bard**_**. **

Aha! The snitch, that ultimate goal for the seeker, hides a secret inside! What better symbol for the truth we are both seeking through our journey together, Harry? The golden snitch with the concealed secret is reminiscent, of course, of the golden _egg_ with the riddle inside – the egg that Harry could open only when he returned to the symbolic womb of the waters. Most suggestive!

Ron, Harry's impulsive and emotional doppelganger, may yet become illuminated by Dumbledore, as may his intellectual side, represented by Hermione. There must be something significant in the book she is given… We will see!

_**Bill and Fleur get married, and Harry attends the wedding in disguise. Remus Lupin has already married Nymphadora Tonks. Harry, Ron, and Hermione flee from the death eaters and end up going into hiding at Grimmauld Place. They learn from the house-elf Kreacher that Umbridge has the true locket. **_

A double bridal couple – and yet Harry only talks about one wedding. What happened to the other wedding? It is passed over in remarkable silence. Perhaps the two couples are one and the same? The groom is a werewolf, and the bride is a flower, a nymph. Is Harry reflecting on his parents' relationship, perhaps? The werewolf Lupin represents, I believe, an aspect of Harry's own father, and perhaps Bill does as well. Bill-Remus-James and Fleur-Nymphadora-Lily. Does this imaginary wedding indicate that Harry is learning to accept his parents' relationship, recognizing that James and Lily belong with each other? Is he moving beyond his oedipal rivalry with his father?

Umbridge, Lily's dark shadow, has the locket, he tells me. _Lily _has the locket,and I would dearly like to know whose portrait is hidden within.

_**They are able to steal the locket, but they can't open it. The Horcrux begins to have a destructive effect on the three friends. Ron decides to leave Harry and Hermione. **_

The mystery of the locket destroys those who get near it… Harry loses the Ron part of himself to the terrifying secret, but Hermione, his intellect, still remains his ally. Can his own innate intelligence help him conquer the darkness he faces?

_**At Christmas, Harry and Hermione go to Godric's Hollow and visit his parents' graves. They see his parents' old friend Bathilda Bagshot, but she is not what she seems; she is Nagini, the serpent, and they are barely able to escape alive. As they flee, Harry's wand is broken. **_

It is dangerous to visit the landscape of the past, apparently! Your parents' innocent friend can turn into a serpent… I wonder what lies beneath this startling image?

_Godric's Hollow_ – what a remarkable name! Godric is one of the Hogwarts founders, I believe, Godric Gryffindor? He is the good founder, as opposed to the malevolent Slytherin. How odd, then, that Godric is _hollow…_

Harry's wand is broken? Oh, dear, in that case I hope I was mistaken about the phallic symbolism of the wand…!

In Harry's fantasy world, the wand appears to be an extension of the person. Is it Harry himself who is broken? But if the wand signifies the person, how are we to understand the relationship of Harry's wand to Voldemort's? Does the strange identity of their wands symbolize the unity of the two persons as well?

_**Harry and Hermione read startling revelations about Dumbledore's past. They thought that Dumbledore had defeated the dark wizard Grindelwald, but now they learn that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were inseparable friends, until a tragedy drove them apart: The untimely death of Dumbledore's sister.**_

Well, well, well! I am a man of mystery, aren't I? (I am happy to record that my sister Gertrude is actually alive and well in her little cottage in Wales, and as ferocious and formidable as ever…)

A new dark wizard has appeared in Harry's hallucinations, another Voldemort. One for me, and one for him, I assume? Ah, well, we are in this together! _Grindelwald_ – the name is undoubtedly inspired by the serpentine fiend _Grendel_ from the story of Beowulf. But apparently, I am no dragon slayer, but a _friend_ to the monster. How very interesting! What about Harry, I wonder? Is he a secret friend to _his_ monstrous enemy as well?

_**Harry and Hermione are hiding in the forest. Harry follows a silver doe patronus, which leads him to the lake where the true sword of Gryffindor lies hidden. Ron returns, and they try to destroy the locket. But Ron is affected by the locket. A fleeting form of Tom Riddle appears from the Horcrux and taunts Ron, suggesting that Hermione loves Harry, and that Ron's own mother would have preferred Harry over him. But they are able to destroy the Horcrux in the end. **_

Even the sword of Gryffindor has a doppelganger! But how do you tell the true one from the copy? The same way Voldemort could tell the true Harry from his polyjuiced copies, perhaps? The real one is blessed with love, with compassion, which the false double does not possess…?

A silver doe? Harry has an unknown protector, someone who watches over him. I am reminded of Snape's promise to Narcissa to watch over her son… Is he watching over Harry for Lily as well? No wait, Snape was a murderer, wasn't he? Can a man be both a murderer and a protector?

Poor Ron, so desperately jealous! Is this Harry's jealousy of his little brother that rears its head again, or is this something different? Tom Riddle… How interesting: The golden egg hides a riddle, and the silver locket a Riddle… Tom Riddle is the one behind Ron's sudden feeling of jealousy. Voldemort's fragmented soul lives on inside the locket Horcrux. I wonder whose portrait I would see if I could look inside the locket Lily has around her neck? _Voldemort's?_ Yes, perhaps I would finally see the face of Voldemort…

_**They visit Luna's father, the odd Xenophilius Lovegood. Lovegood tells them the Tale of the Three Brothers, the story from Hermione's book. The three brothers meet Death himself and receive three magical gifts: The Resurrection Stone, the Elder Wand, and the Invisibility Cloak. These are the Deathly Hallows. But Lovegood has betrayed them to the death eaters to save the life of his daughter, Luna. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are able to escape at the last minute. **_

The Deathly Hallows? _Hallow, _as in saint, a blessed dead person? Who, or what, are these Hallows? The three blessed ones – are they another representation of the recurring trinity of mother, father, and son? But why do they encounter _Death? _

And then there is Xenophilius. _Xenophilius_, "the one who loves the strange". A suitable name for an eccentric man! Or perhaps his name can be translated instead "the one who loves a stranger"? But why would a parent who loves a stranger betray someone to the death eaters to save his child's life? Very odd, indeed.

_**Everyone else fears uttering Voldemort's name, but Harry follows Dumbledore's example and calls the Dark Lord by his true name. But the very name is cursed, and when Harry utters it, the death eaters arrive.**_

They all fear uttering Voldmort's true name. _He Who Must Not Be Named. Why_ must he not be named? But some part of Harry is willing to do it, to utter the dread name of the shadowy figure whose face Lily conceals within the locket.

You are right Harry, I don't care if the name is cursed. _I want you to utter Voldemort's real name, _Harry, no matter what the dreadful consequences are.

_**They are imprisoned in the dungeon of Malfoy Manor. Hermione is tortured by Bellatrix. But Harry has a mirror, and he uses the mirror to call out to Dumbledore. No, not Dumbledore, Dumbledore is dead; but to another Dumbledore, his double. **_

Ah! I have a doppelganger, too! Good, I was beginning to feel left out, among all these characters with dark shadow selves! Hmmm. I believe the only character in Harry's delusions without a dark double at this point is the inimitable Miss McGonagall! Ah, the amazing, wonderfully singular McGonagall! There can be only one of her in any world, real or imagined, bless her!

_**Harry's mind and Voldemort's are one; he can see Voldemort stealing the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's tomb. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are not above a little robbery themselves; Hermione uses Polyjuice potion to transform into Bellatrix, and they break into Gringotts and steal a Horcrux, the Cup of Hufflepuff, hidden in Bellatrix' vault. **_

Oh, how difficult it is not to get lost in the Freudian paradise of the womb symbols of the cup and the vault! But I must resist the Master's voice, for I believe there is something else that is more significant here: Bellatrix is hiding the cup. Perhaps her double, Lily, is hiding a cup as well. But _Harry finds it. _He has discovered the secret. What is it that he has discovered, I wonder?

_**Harry, Ron, and Hermione flee on a dragon and arrive in Hogsmeade, but the death eaters are after them. They are rescued by Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth, who tells them the true story of Ariana, Dumbledore's lost sister, and his possible complicity in her death. Who caused her death – Dumbledore or Grindelwald? It is impossible to tell. **_

Harry has been projecting his battle with his own dark enemy onto me. If I may have caused the death of the innocent, does that hold true for Harry as well, I wonder?

_**Students and staff at Hogwarts prepare for the final battle against Voldemort and his death eaters, as Harry searches for the last Horcruxes. Ron and Hermione are able to destroy the cup. Harry discovers that Ravenclaw's diadem is a Horcrux as well, but the diadem is destroyed by Fiendfyre. As the battle rages, Fred, Lupin, and Tonks are killed. Lupin and Tonks' young son, Teddy, is left an orphan.**_

_Fred?_ You can't be serious, Harry! I have grown so fond of the Fred and George characters! Why does _Fred_ have to die? That doesn't make any sense at all!

Lupin and Tonks – well, they do represent Lily and James after all, don't they, so of course they have to die, just like the James and Lily in Harry's delusions. But they leave behind a small son, Teddy, an orphan who will be raised by relatives, a new Harry…

_**Voldemort kills Snape. But the dying Snape reveals his secret to Harry: He loved Lily, and tried to protect Harry for her sake. He was a murderer, but the murder was both necessary and inevitable, committed for the sake of the greater good. He reveals to Harry that there is one last Horcrux: Harry himself. The last piece of Voldemort's soul lives on within Harry. **_

Ah! Snape's secret! I knew my Hogwarts self trusted Snape for a good reason! How satisfying to learn that I am not losing my grip. So, Snape is another one of Lily's admirers, is he? _And Snape is willing to murder for her sake, and for Harry's? _Who is this elusive Snape, this homicidal protector? Someone who loved Lily… _Reggie Black? James? Or someone else altogether?_ And how can a murder be committed for the sake of good?

_**Harry realizes that since he and Voldemort are one, he must die as well. He goes unarmed and alone to meet Voldemort. As he goes towards his death, he comes upon the snitch, and now he understands what it will take to unlock its secret: He tells the snitch that he is about to die. And the snitch opens miraculously, and reveals a stone within: The resurrection stone. But Harry does not use the stone to resurrect the dead; he goes to meet death instead, with the shadows of the dead by his side, to comfort him. And then he meets Voldmort, and the Dark Lord kills him with the dreaded curse Avada Kedavra…**_

Voldemort _kills_ Harry? _What? _Death. Death unlocks the secret. What does this mean? Whose death?

_**But Harry wakes up in a curious world betwixt and between. He finds himself naked, but he no longer has a scar; he is whole again. Nearby, there is a terrifying creature, a monstrous, deformed child. It is Voldmort; it is the part of the Dark Lord that lived in Harry. **_

Curiouser and curiouser! Harry is undergoing a strange rebirth… What does this mean? And why is Voldemort a _baby?_ Is Harry somehow returning to the very beginning here? To the time before he got his scar?

_**And then Dumbledore appears…**_

_Aha! Wouldn't you know it!_

…_**and Dumbledore explains that Harry is not dead after all. Harry finds himself back at King's Cross Station, the place where he first began his journey to Hogwarts. Harry must choose: to take the train to some unknown destination, or to return to the real world. He chooses to go back to face Voldemort. **_

I am proud of you, Harry! You had a choice between jumping on another imaginary train or meeting Voldmort face to face, and you chose to let the train go. You are ready to return to reality, I believe, as soon as you are able to face that final challenge.

_**And then Harry meets Voldemort. Voldemort utters the killing curse, but Harry responds with "Expelliarmus". Voldemort possesses the unbeatable Elder Wand, but Harry is its true master. Voldemort's killing curse rebounds, and he dies instead of Harry. **_

_**Voldemort is dead. **_

What? Voldemort is _dead?_ _And then what, Harry? _

Harry looked at me, dazed. "And then nothing, Doctor Dumbledore," he said simply. "That's it. That's the end of the story."

_That's the end of the story?_

_What? _

_No. That can't be the end Harry! The story makes no sense! Something must be missing still! How can the tale end like this?_

"Tell me more, Harry!" I pleaded. "Tell me more about Voldemort. Is he really dead?"

He nodded. "Yes, he is dead."

"Voldemort?Tom Riddle is dead?_ You lived, and he died?"_

And all at once, something seemed to stir in Harry. The strangely absent, faraway expression I had seen so often faded from his face and was replaced by a look of - of what? Some kind of horrible awakening-?

"_Tom_," he whispered, his voice almost inaudible. "He is dead. Tom is dead. They killed him. _Tom is dead…"_

And Harry collapsed into my arms, sobbing, screaming, wild with some unknown grief. I had no choice but to give him a sedative and send him home with his parents.

I remained in my office for hours, desperately searching for some kind of understanding. It appears that Harry has finally made a breakthrough, faced the hidden truth at last. _But what is it? Why do I not see it? All the information I need should be right here, here in my files. _

Tom is dead.

_Tom is dead. _They killed him. _They_. Who are "they"? _And who the hell is Tom?_


	8. Chapter 8

[Author's note: Thanks for the reviews! What wonderful insights and intriguing guesses! This should be the second to last chapter, unless something unexpected happens. Speaking of the unexpected: I know I promised that there would be no slash, vampires, or aliens in this story. And yet, as I am drafting the final chapters, I am realizing that I may have been slightly wrong about one of those…]

_From the Files of Dr. Dumbledore_

_The Case of Harry P., Supplemental_

I remained in my chair, reading and re-reading my notes, trying to make sense of Harry's curious statement. _They killed Tom._ I must admit that I had believed up to that point that Tom Riddle was a symbol, an archetype, the dark side of Harry, rather than a real person. Perhaps I am wrong. Is Tom a real person? Who is he? How did he die, and by whose hand? Was it some kind of terrible accident, or a murder?

Tom. Tom _Riddle_. Did not his very name suggest that he is the riddle at the heart of Harry's illness?

I read my notes yet again, slowly and carefully, seeking desperately for any clue to the riddle of Tom, the boy from the diary, the boy who bears such a strange resemblance to Harry...

Ah, so many questions still left unresolved! Who is Tom? Who is Voldemort? _How did Harry get his scar_, and why do his parents refuse to tell me the truth about the scar? What _did _happen to Reggie Black? Why does Harry subconsciously fantasize about killing his father? Why does his mother appear as the cruel Petunia and the sadistic Umbridge in his hallucinations? Who is Snape? Why did I give Hermione that old book? Why did Cedric have to die? Why did I have to lose my hand? Why did Fred Weasley die, while his brother George was scarred?

_Fred and George!_ And suddenly, the truth leapt out at me from the pages in my hand. _No! Impossible!_ And yet it had been there, the entire time: _The doppelganger motif,_ the odd doubling that runs through Harry's hallucinations. Each character has a mirror image, a double_. For now we see through a glass, darkly_… When Harry looked in the mirror, he saw the serpent. He saw Voldemort. He saw Tom Riddle. He saw _his mirror image._

Everyone has a doppelganger: Fred and George. Padma and Parvati. Remus and the non-existent Romulus. Sirius and his dead brother Regulus. Petunia and Lily. Narcissa and Lily. Umbridge and Lily. James and Lucius. James and Vernon. Snape and Slughorn. Hagrid and Grawp. Albus and Aberforth. Harry and Draco. Harry and Neville. Harry and Tom. Two vanishing cabinets, two lockets, two swords. _Two Harrys?_

Doppelgangers, mirrors, doubles, shadows, _twins._ _Harry is a twin._

Harry and Tom! Harry and Tom, who resemble one another so strangely, Harry and Tom, whose twin wands share the same core… Yes, I think this must be it!

_But why is Fred Weasley dead?_

Fred Weasley is dead, while the wounded George lives. Padma and Parvati are separated into different houses, Remus has no Romulus, and Sirius' dark brother is gone. Why are these twins so strangely torn apart? _Where do vanished persons go? Into nothingness._

_Where is Harry's twin? _Dead?

_The Tale of the Three Brothers!_ I always thought there were _two_ brothers in Harry's tale, Harry and Dudley… But what if there was a third? The invisible brother, hidden under the cloak, under Death's invisibility cloak? Three brothers: Harry, Dudley, and Harry's lost twin brother Tom…

_They killed Tom._ _Who_ killed Tom? How did he die? Did he die accidentally or by design? Nobody knew who was responsible for the death of Ariana, Dumbledore's lost sister…. Do we know whose hand killed Harry's lost brother?

_Kill the spare._ Four is one too many. I had assumed that Harry was the spare, the intruder, the fourth, and that James, Lily, and Dudley were the three that belonged together in Harry's mind. But what if this happened before Dudley was born? Then there would have been four of them in the beginning: James, Lily, Harry and Tom. But then the four were reduced to three. _How?_

Did Harry somehow cause his brother's death? Is his scar, after all, the mark of Cain, the mark of the murderer? Is this the guilt that drove Harry into madness?

No… Harry refuses to harm Voldmort, even when Voldemort threatens to kill him. _Expelliarmus…_ Not _Avada Kedavra._ No, Harry may have mourned and feared and loved the ghost of his dead brother, trembled before his memory and feared his revenge, but he wishes he could have protected him. Protected him from what? In Harry's hallucination, Tom Riddle killed James and Lily, and wants Harry dead as well. _In return for what? _Why does Harry believe that his dead brother wants _him_ dead instead?

Harry cannot be harmed; his mother's love protects him. How very odd! How can Lily's love have protected Harry, but not Tom? _Why was Harry the Chosen One? Why_ was Harry the Boy Who Lived, the receiver of the golden _Felix Felicis,_ liquid luck, the blessing of the blessed?Why Harry and not Tom? No, this makes no sense!

If Harry's twin is dead, how did he die? Surely Lily and James could not harm their own child?

And yet, chillingly, there is something in Harry's hallucinations that suggests that they did. For Harry's subconscious tells me that James is both the Lucifer-like Lucius and Peter, the betrayer. And the loving Lily is the shadowy Umbridge, who inflicts torture and suffering. _Did Lily and James harm Tom? _No, it can't be!

Or can it?

I read my notes frantically, over and over, as I muttered to myself: "Lily and James? _Lily and James - killed Tom_? But _why_?"

I had not noticed anyone enter the room, but suddenly, I became aware that I was no longer alone. A soft voice spoke from the doorway: "No, Dr. Dumbledore. Lily and James did not kill Tom. _I did_."

I glanced up in utter incomprehension. There, in the doorway, stood a handsome, dark-haired man, dressed in a black coat. His face was deathly pale, but his black eyes glowed.

"Who are you...?" I whispered.

The stranger gave an odd little bow. "I beg your pardon for intruding like this, Dr. Dumbledore, but you did not appear to hear my knock. My name is Snape."


	9. Chapter 9

_From the Files of Dr. Dumbledore_

_The Case of Harry P., Supplemental_

_Snape? _I stared at the stranger, my heart oddly torn between complete bewilderment and superstitious dread. The dark-clad man had stepped out of a boy's hallucinations, entered my office and confessed to murder. _Snape, my murderer._ Absurdly, I realized that I half-expected him to draw a wand from his coat pocket and point it at me. _I really have too much imagination to be in this profession. _I shouldn't have to remind myself that the world of Hogwarts has no existence outside the imagination of a troubled teen.

But Snape is real. He is here, in my office. Presumably, he has something on his mind, other than the planned murder of a non-existent headmaster.

"Are you – _real_ then?"

I could have kicked myself for the utter stupidity of the question. Obviously he is real; he is _here, _unless I have started hallucinating too.

Snape smiled a little at my bizarre remark. His face was actually rather beautiful when he smiled. I suddenly found it difficult to imagine him as a killer, even though he had just confessed to a murder, as far as I could tell. _Ah, here I go, trusting Snape again!_ But then, Snape had committed the inevitable murder out of love for Lily, hadn't he? Snape, the benevolent assassin, the moderate murderer…

"I am an old friend of Lily's."

I raised my eyebrows just a tad, and a slight flush spread over Snape's pale face.

"Well, more than a friend at one time, but that is a long time ago. Before she met… _James_."

Something in the way he said the name "James" reminded me of the sarcastic potions master from Harry's hallucinations. How is it possible to infuse a single syllable with that much resentment and contempt?

Snape went on: "Lily and I – we had not been in touch for some time. That's how James wanted it, and perhaps she did, too…" His voice trembled.

_Am I sitting here feeling sorry for a man who just confessed to murdering a child?_

Snape sank down into one of my office chairs. "But a few days ago, Lily wrote to me…" He swallowed audibly. "She - she told me of Harry's illness, and she gave me your name."

_Lily did?_

"Lily… I think she has begun to realize that the memory of his brother Tom is what is making Harry ill. She desperately wants to help him, but she is not able to tell you about Tom. My poor Lily! Even in her letter to me, she referred to Tom only as "You know who". She has never been able to utter his name since…" Snape's voice trailed off.

_Since what? Since you killed her child?_

No. Snape cannot be a killer. Not when his face is distorted with pain at the very thought of Lily's suffering. _But he said he killed Tom…_

Snape looked up at me, his dark eyes unfathomable. "This – this is not easy for me, Dr. Dumbledore," he said softly. "But Lily's letter to me was a cry for help, vague as it was. She needs me to help save her son. I am here to do so."

_Save her son? But didn't you just tell me that you murdered her other son? How can you kill one brother, and be so concerned about the other?_

Snape whispered: " I will tell you the truth, Dr. Dumbledore, the truth that Harry suspects and which James and Lily have tried so desperately to forget."

I leaned forward. "Tell me: Is Harry a twin?"

Snape nodded. "He was, yes."

_Was._ The word made me shiver.

"Here." He pulled something out of his coat pocket. "I have brought you this. This is one of the few remaining photographs of Tom and Harry together. James and Lily destroyed all the others after Tom's death, except for one that Lily keeps in a locket she never opens. I decided to keep one for myself, as a reminder-."

_Lily's locket! The face of Voldemort… _

My heart pounded in my chest as I reached out for the old photograph. I took it with a trembling hand, looked at the faded picture of the two boys, _and suddenly I understood._

_Neither can live while the other survives._ Of course. _This is why Tom had to die._

And my heart filled with pity for Lily and James and for Harry, the Boy Who Lived and for Tom, the Boy Who Died.

I turned to Snape. His dark eyes were blank, expressionless.

"I was the surgeon who separated them," he said in a low voice. "We always knew that at least one of them would die during the surgery, but without the operation they would both die. Not many doctors would even attempt the separation of Siamese twins with fused skulls, but I was one of the few who could do it."

_Quirrell… Quirrell had to faces, so strangely merged together. And one of them was the face of Voldemort…. _

And Parvati's son Ganesha had two heads as well: One human, and one animal. But one head was severed…

"Lily..." Snape whispered. "Lily asked me to do it, to save the life of one of her sons, while killing the other. They were dying, you see, because of their fusion… They were slowly killing each other. Neither could live while the other survived… I had to kill one to save the other."

_Avada Kedavra! _The ancient healing spell that turned into a killing curse! The doctor has to kill in order to heal… Of course Snape is a doctor! I should have seen that; for what is a potions master, after all, but a master of medicine?

Snape went on: "Their brains were strangely fused together; it was impossible to separate them in such a way that they could both survive. One of them had to die… But Lily… Lily and James were unable to choose. How could they choose? They had two sons, identical one year olds, both loved and cherished, and _one of them had to die._ No parent could have made that choice. But I – "

His voice cracked a little, but he pulled himself together. "I did it for Lily," he said simply. "I made the horrible, impossible choice. Lily couldn't do it, so I made the choice for her. I chose to save Harry and kill Tom. I murdered a one year old child, so that his brother might live. There was no reason, no reason at all, to choose one over the other. Tom and Harry were both equally strong, and their chances of survival were about the same. But someone had to choose one over the other, or they would both die. And so I chose. I chose Harry, simply because I had to pick one. I have questioned my choice every single day for the past sixteen years. Why did I condemn that one to death, and the other one to life?"

"How-" I had a hard time finding my voice. "How can any human being make such a choice?"

A ghost of a smile flickered briefly over Snape's pale face. He whispered. "I made the choice so that Lily didn't have to. She has to live with the grief, but not with the guilt. The guilt is all mine. Perhaps that is why she can't bear to see me anymore… The surgery was…successful, if you can call it that, when you kill a one year old child so that his brother may live. I separated Harry from Tom, severed the bond between them."

Of course. _Severus._ _The severer._ The eternally ambivalent Snape, murderer and savior in one…

Poor Lily: Like Narcissa, she begged Snape to save her son, and like Bellatrix, she told him to sacrifice a child…

Ah, and then there was the poor Xenophilius, who loved so strangely, who betrayed the children to the death eaters, so that his child might live…

"Harry appeared to heal completely," said Snape quietly, "except for a scar on his forehead, a reminder of his lost brother. I have often wondered afterwards what it was like for Harry, growing up without his brother. I wonder if his body remembered, somehow, that it was no longer whole, that it had lost its other half… I separated them as best I could, but they were so entwined, I could not tell completely. Perhaps some part of Tom still lives on within his brother…"

"Oh, God," I muttered. "No wonder Lily and James were not able to speak of this!"

Snape nodded. "Lily and James, in their grief, vowed never to speak of it again. They couldn't even bear to mention Tom's name, but focused all their love and energy on Harry, the one who lived. I wonder how Harry found out... Maybe he found a letter or a diary that mentioned his brother..."

_The diary!_ The memory of Tom lives in a diary… A diary (Lily's?) discovered by a sensitive eleven year old child, containing the story of his unknown twin's death and his own survival may have so traumatized the boy that he sought refuge in his fantasy world. He must have blamed his parents for his twin's death, blamed the surgeon, blamed himself for surviving… And perhaps his guilt and his fevered imagination gave rise to the fantasy of his lost brother becoming Voldemort, a figure of horror, seeking his revenge on the Boy Who Lived…

After Snape had left, I watched him through my office window as he disappeared down the street. The solitary figure was black against the flaming red of the setting sun. Lily doesn't speak to him anymore…_ La Belle Dame Sans Merci… _

But Harry is healing now. When he was finally faced with the truth, Harry broke down completely, but he is now on his way to recovery. Painful as it may be for them, Lily and James are finally sitting down with him and talking about Tom. They have brought out their hidden mementoes of Tom: A baby cup, a teething ring, and a christening cap. _The cup, the ring, and the diadem. _James has even begun using Tom's name. Perhaps one day Lily will, too.

They all came together for one of their final visits with me today. Lily and James both had their arms around Harry's shoulders as they talked. Harry has finally begun to make eye contact, to acknowledge James' and Lily's presence, to admit that they are indeed his parents. What a charming family picture they made, the lovely flame-haired Lily and her dark-haired boys! Little Dudley was sitting on his father's lap, playing with the intercom button on my desk, much to the delight of Miss McGonagall, who answered every single one of his calls with the same pretend professionalism. Both Harry and his parents smiled at his little games.

Odd, though, how different Dudley and Harry are! Harry is the spitting image of James, while Dudley has these lovely, black curls, so unlike his father's straight hair… I wonder - yes, I wonder, if the charming Reggie Black really disappeared completely… Harry's hallucinations contained references to secret correspondence between himself and Sirius. And Lily… Well, Lily is a lady who keeps her secrets to herself. But James is a happy man, and their little family is a harmonious one. _I do believe that in the end, all will be well._

With this I will conclude my notes on the curious case of Harry P.

I closed my notebook and sat still for a moment. This had truly been one of the strangest cases of my long career. I had grown quite fond of Harry, and of his wonderful imaginary realm.

But it will not do to dwell on cases of the past, and I have more patients in the waiting room. God knows what other troubled souls with dark secrets are waiting out there.

I sighed. Back to work. I pushed the intercom button. "Miss McGonagall? I'm ready for the next patient now. Kindly send the Cullens in."


	10. Final Note

Final note:

Thanks for reading the story all the way to the end! This story is now complete. The first chapter of the sequel, _The Scarlet Line, _is up. Yes, it's about the Cullens. Please read and review!


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